2021 in Australian literature
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
This is a list of historical events and publications of Australian literature during 2021.
Literary fiction
- David Allan-Petale – Locust Summer
- Aravind Adiga – Amnesty[1]
- Michael Mohammed Ahmad – The Other Half of You[2]
- Miles Allinson – In Moonland
- Larissa Behrendt – After Story
- Steven Carroll – O[3]
- Michelle de Kretser – Scary Monsters[4]
- Jennifer Down – Bodies of Light
- Briohny Doyle – Echolalia[5]
- Max Easton – The Magpie Wing[6]
- Nikki Gemmell – The Ripping Tree[7]
- Anita Heiss – Bila Yarrudhanggalangdhuray: River of Dreams
- Tom Keneally – Corporal Hitler's Pistol
- John Kinsella – Pushing Back[8]
- Emily Maguire – Love Objects[9]
- Jennifer Mills – The Airways[10]
- Alice Pung – One Hundred Days[11]
- Diana Reid – Love & Virtue
- Nicolas Rothwell – Red Heaven
- Claire Thomas – The Performance[12]
- Christos Tsiolkas – 7 ½[13]
- Michael Winkler – Grimmish
Short story collections
- Tony Birch – Dark as Last Night
Children's and young adult fiction
- Felicity Castagna – Girls in Boys' Cars[14]
- Sophie Gonzales – Only Mostly Devastated[15]
- Katrina Nannestad – Rabbit, Soldier, Angel Thief[16]
Crime and mystery
- Tim Ayliffe – The Enemy Within[17]
- Mark Brandi – The Others[18]
- B. M. Carroll – You Had It Coming[19]
- Candice Fox – The Chase
- Helen FitzGerald – Ash Mountain[20]
- Jack Heath – Kill Your Brother[21]
- Charlotte McConaghy – Once There Were Wolves
- Debra Oswald – The Family Doctor[22]
- Kyle Perry – The Deep[23]
- Michael Robotham – When You Are Mine[24]
- Laurta Elizabeth Woollett – The Newcomer
Science fiction and fantasy
- Max Barry – The 22 Murders of Madison May[25]
- Greg Egan – The Book of All Skies
- Jay Kristoff – Empire of the Vampire
- Shelley Parker-Chan – She Who Became the Sun
- Angela Slatter – All the Murmuring Bones[26]
- Janeen Webb – The Five Star Republic with Andrew Enstice[27]
Poetry
- Eunice Andrada – Take Care
- Evelyn Araluen – Dropbear
- Pam Brown – Stasis Shuffle[28]
- Maxine Beneba Clarke – How Decent Folk Behave[29]
- Andy Jackson – Human Looking[30]
- Elfie Shiosaki – Homecoming[31]
- Maria Takolander – Trigger Warning[32]
Non-fiction
- Randa Abdel-Fattah – Coming of Age in the War on Terror[33]
- Julia Banks – Power Play: Breaking Through Bias, Barriers and Boys' Clubs[34]
- Alison Croggon – Monsters: A reckoning[35]
- Jaivet Ealom – Escape From Manus
- Mehreen Faruqi – Too Migrant, Too Muslim, Too Loud[36]
- Ross Garnaut – Reset: Restoring Australia after the Pandemic Recession[37]
- Stan Grant – With the Falling of the Dusk[38]
- Dale Kent – The Most I Could Be[39]
- Scott Ludlam – Full Circle: A search for the world that comes next[40]
- Mark McKenna – Return to Uluru[41]
- Henry Reynolds – Truth-Telling: History, sovereignty and the Uluru Statement[42]
- Jeff Sparrow – Crimes Against Nature: Capitalism and Global Heating[43]
- Corey Tutt and Blak Douglas (illustrator) – The First Scientists: Deadly Inventions and Innovations from Australia's First Peoples[44]
Collected essays
- Chelsea Watego – Another Day in the Colony[45]
Awards and honours
Note: these awards were presented in the year in question.
Lifetime achievement
| Award | Author |
|---|---|
| Melbourne Prize for Literature[46] | Christos Tsiolkas |
| Patrick White Award[47] | Adam Aitken |
Literary
| Award | Author | Title | Publisher |
|---|---|---|---|
| ALS Gold Medal[48] | Nardi Simpson | Song of the Crocodile | Hachette Australia |
| Colin Roderick Award[49] | Sofie Laguna | Infinite Splendours | Allen & Unwin |
| Indie Book Awards Book of the Year[50] | Pip Williams | The Dictionary of Lost Words | Affirm Press |
| New South Wales Premier's Literary Awards[51] | Ellen van Neerven | Throat | University of Queensland Press |
| Stella Prize[52] | Evie Wyld | The Bass Rock | Penguin Random House |
| Victorian Premier's Literary Awards[53][54][55] | Laura Jean McKay | The Animals in That Country | Scribe |
Fiction
National
Children and Young Adult
National
| Award | Category | Author | Title | Publisher |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| ARA Historical Novel Prize[58] | Children and Young Adult | Katrina Nannestad | We are Wolves | ABC Books |
| Children's Book of the Year Award[67] | Older Readers | Davina Bell | The End of the World is Bigger than Love | Text |
| Younger Readers | Kate Gordon | Aster's Good, Right Things | Riveted Press | |
| Picture Book | Meg McKinlay, illus. Matt Ottley | How to Make a Bird | Walker Books | |
| Early Childhood | Libby Hathorn & Lisa Hathorn-Jarman, illus. Mel Pearce | No! Never! | Lothian Books | |
| Eve Pownall Award for Information Books | Pamela Freeman, illus. Liz Anelli | Dry to Dry: The Seasons of Kakadu | Walker Books | |
| Nan Chauncy Award[68] | Jan Nicholls | |||
| Indie Book Awards Book of the Year[50] | Children's | Amelia Mellor | The Grandest Bookshop in the World | Affirm Press |
| Young Adult | Kate O'Donnell | This One is Ours | University of Queensland Press | |
| New South Wales Premier's Literary Awards[63][64] | Children's | Amelia Mellor | The Grandest Bookshop in the World | Affirm |
| Young People's | Davina Bell | The End of the World is Bigger than Love | Text | |
| Queensland Literary Awards[65] | Children's | Kirli Saunders, illustrated by Dub Leffler | Bindi | Magabala Books |
| Young Adult | Cath Moore | Metal Fish, Falling Snow | Text | |
| Victorian Premier's Literary Awards[53][55] | Young Adult Fiction | Cath Moore | Metal Fish, Falling Snow | Text |
Crime and Mystery
National
| Award | Category | Author | Title | Publisher |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Davitt Award[69] | Novel | Sally Hepworth | The Good Sister | Pan Macmillan |
| Young adult novel | Christie Nieman | Where We Begin | Pan Macmillan | |
| Children's novel | Lian Tanner | A Clue for Clara | Allen & Unwin | |
| True crime | Louise Milligan | Witness | Hachette Australia | |
| Debut novel | Leah Swann | Sheerwater | HarperCollins | |
| Readers' choice | Katherine Kovacic | The Shifting Landscape | Echo Publishing | |
| Ned Kelly Award[70] | Novel | Garry Disher | Consolation | Text Publishing |
| First novel | Loraine Peck | The Second Son | Penguin Books | |
| True crime | Bret Christian | Stalking Claremont | HarperCollins | |
Poetry
| Award | Author | Title | Publisher |
|---|---|---|---|
| Adelaide Festival Awards for Literature[56] | Not awarded | ||
| Anne Elder Award[71] | Ella Jeffery | Dead Bolt | Puncher & Wattmann |
| Mary Gilmore Award[72] | Em König | Breathing Plural | Cordite |
| Prime Minister's Literary Awards[62] | Stephen Edgar | The Strangest Place: New and Selected Poems | Black Pepper |
| New South Wales Premier's Literary Awards[63][64] | Ellen van Neerven | Throat | University of Queensland Press |
| Judith Wright Calanthe Award for a Poetry Collection[65] | Ouyang Yu | Terminally Poetic | Ginninderra Press |
| Victorian Premier's Literary Awards[53][55] | David Stavanger | Case Notes | UWA Publishing |
Drama
| Award | Category | Author | Title | Publisher |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| New South Wales Premier's Literary Awards[63][64] | Script | Laurence Billiet | Freeman | General Strike and Matchbox Pictures |
| Play | Dylan Van Den Berg | Milk | The Street Theatre | |
| Victorian Premier's Literary Awards[55] | Angus Cerini | Wonnangatta | Sydney Theatre Company | |
| Patrick White Playwrights' Award[73] | Award | Kamarra Bell-Wykes | Who's Gonna Love 'Em? I am that i AM | Malthouse Theatre |
| Fellowship | Emme Hoy |
Non-Fiction
| Award | Category | Author | Title | Publisher |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Adelaide Festival Awards for Literature[56] | Non-Fiction | Not awarded | ||
| Indie Book Awards Book of the Year[50] | Non-Fiction | Julia Baird | Phosphorescence | Random House |
| Illustrated Non-Fiction | Lauren Camilleri & Sophia Kaplan | Plantopedia | Smith Street Books | |
| National Biography Award[74] | Biography | Cassandra Pybus | Truganini: Journey Through the Apocalypse | Allen & Unwin |
| New South Wales Premier's Literary Awards[63][64] | Non-Fiction | Kate Fullagar | The Warrior, the Voyager, and the Artist: Three Lives in an Age of Empire | Yale University Press |
| New South Wales Premier's History Awards[75] | Australian History | Grace Karskens | People of the River: Lost worlds of early Australia | Allen & Unwin |
| Community and Regional History | Matthew Colloff | Landscapes of Our Hearts: Reconciling people and environment | Thames & Hudson | |
| General History | Luke Keogh | The Wardian Case: How a simple box moved plants and changed the world | The University of Chicago Press | |
| Queensland Literary Awards[65] | Non-Fiction | Luke Stegemann | Amnesia Road: Landscape, violence and memory | NewSouth Publishing |
| Victorian Premier's Literary Awards[53][55] | Non-Fiction | Paddy Manning | Body Count: How Climate Change is Killing Us | Simon & Schuster |
